After It All II: Glow
by L'il Senzu
Summary: Gloria is an unwanted teen thinking about the loss of the only adult who was ever nice to her when she meets a sick Roger who is looking for his best friend, and find they're thinking of the same person. OneShot. Angst. Gloria's POV. NO marysue. Please RR


I decided to finally resolve the question of where Roger was after After It All...but do it from an outside perspective because...well I just got the idea to do it like that, and it was easier to write than something from Rog's POV. If I ever do a rewrite of After It All with the alternative ending, it'll be from an OC's perspective too, at least part of it... I've never written something like this before, where its from a distant perspective than the intended focus...but I kind of like the way it came out, it gives you answers without details...shrug comments would be great appreciated.

I do not own RENT or any characters therein

Glow

"Get back here right now, Gloria!"

I could hear her screaming from my hiding place behind the dumpster across the street. Damn, that woman had a loud voice! She wasn't going to chase me though, she never did. So long as I got three feet away from the front stoop of our apartment building, I was in the clear.

I truly hated that woman sometimes. And not just because she named me 'Gloria'...of all things, Gloria! I was a scrawny, pale, brunette with skinny legs and a flat chest, even at fourteen...and my name was Gloria, to boot. At least if it was Roxanne or Marilyn or Heather or Dawn or Jennifer or fucking Pamela even, I'd be a little better...I mean, with how I looked, I needed a fucking sexy name. That's why everybody called me Glow, because it wasn't sexy but at least it was kind of cool. ...well actually that's not why people called me Glow. Originally, the name was created to taunt me, implying that I was so pale that I glowed in the dark. But I ended up liking it so it stuck.

But her horrible choice in my name wasn't the only reason I hated this...maternal figure. Mainly, she was a whore. In 14 years, she'd been with thirty two guys, I kept count. Out of thirty-two, I only liked three of them: my father, Cody and Henry. 19:32 hit her, 7:32 hit me, 1:32 tried to rape me, 27:32 did drugs, 12:32 had bad breath, 4:32 stole from her - us, 1:32 set my room on fire. I think the only things that kept me sane through it all were keeping my lists and numbers on all my observations (a hobby that eventually turned into an obsession for me), and running away. So here I am, running away again, just for the night. I'll go wander around Alphabet City then sleep in a doorway. Better than staying home.

As I walked along the street, I once again found myself starring at the building from which he had done it. It was one of the few tragedies that actually affected me; the death of that camera guy. I'd talked to him a few times when I was younger. He'd been pretty cool, for an adult. He was one of the very few adults who had been nice to me, hadn't treated me like a retard or a delinquent. I'd wanted to go to his funeral, but my mother hadn't let me, and I couldn't find a way to find out about his service on my own…if he even had a service. I think maybe only the rich have funerals.

As I stared, I saw a guy come out of the front, he looked worried. He wore a worn out leather jacket and his skin was pale and looked thin, like it was stretched tight over his bones. I knew that look, it was the look they all got eventually: he was sick, he was positive.

I watched him pace back and forth in front of the building for a few moments before I finally recognized him: it was Robert…or Rodney…or Randy or something like that. He'd lived with Mark, the camera guy, way back when. I couldn't believe it was him, I hadn't seen him since I was ten years old. It was after he'd left that Mark had changed. He was still nice to me, but the more time went by the less he talked to me…not that we ever had long, in depth conversations…but at some point, he'd turned into some kind of shell…a void, who wouldn't even smile back. It was probably this guy's fault, I thought with slight anger.

I'd never completely liked this guy. He'd never been mean to me, but he hadn't talked to me like Mark had, hadn't paid any real attention to me at all unless Mark had stopped to talk to me, then he'd usually smile at me, every now and then encourage me to skip school and say cuss words, which made me laugh but it hadn't been enough to make me trust him. I never had a lot of reason to like him…but Mark had liked him, so I decided to talk to him.

"Yo, leather!" I called, walking over to him. He stopped immediately, turning to look at me with a curious expression.

"Yeah?"

"You're Robert right?"

He wrinkled his brow. "Roger, actually…Do I know you?"

I nodded, sighing slightly as I pushed my long bangs out of my face and behind my ears. "You did. Mark and you used to talk to me sometimes when I was a kid. Its me, Glow…Gloria."

He stared at me for a second before his eyes widened in recognition, and then suddenly in what appeared to be hope, although I couldn't be sure as hope was such a rare thing to see in my life.

"Oh yeah! Wow, you grew up, kid."

"It happens."

"So have you seen Mark? Where is he, he's not in the loft…it looks abandoned." He sounded worried again.

I stared at him for a while. How could he not know? I pointed up to the roof. He followed my finger with his eyes, brow crinkling as he looked.

"He jumped." I said softly, my voice strangely calm.

I watched as Roger looked back to me, his eyes incredibly wide. He was silent for a few moments, his mouth open slightly and his lip quivering just a touch.

"You're lying."

I scoffed. "Why the hell would I lie? I liked Mark, he was a cool guy, for a grown up."

I noticed with slight interest that his face was whitening.

"Mark wouldn't do that." I wasn't sure if he was trying to argue with me or convince himself.

"Everyone has their limits, I guess."

He was silent for a moment, and then he spoke, his voice hoarse, as if he'd already been crying. "Tell me."

I understood immediately that he wanted me to explain..

"I was eleven at the time….so that'd make it about three years ago…Nobody saw him for a long time before he did it. Last time I saw him, he was drunk. Asked him for a cigarette and he actually gave it to me."

"Thought he quit." Roger muttered softly. I noticed that he wasn't crying. Why wasn't he crying? Then again, I hadn't either. I'm not sure if anybody had…I was struck with the sudden desire for someone to cry for Mark.

"Guess not. So one day, sometime in December, he just jumped. His camera was found broken to pieces around him and under him. Guess he had it with him. There was also a lot of bottles in the loft and up on the roof…he was drunk when he did it, they say he was an alcoholic by the end. By that time, I hardly saw him at all, so I didn't really know." I was shocking myself with how little emotion was in my voice, it was like I was talking about someone I hadn't known.

He kept starring at the roof for a few tense moments before looking at me again.

"Why?"

I stared at him for a minute, immediately understanding what he was asking. "I really don't know, Christ, man, I was eleven. Do you really expect me to know the inner workings of his mind?"

"Guess not." He sounded bitter, angry. I scowled at him. "It was my fault…I shouldn't have left him." He whispered, probably more to himself rather than me.

I shrugged. "Probably was."

He glared at me, his eyes were now wet with tears, but still unshed. "What the fuck do you know about it? You're a fucking kid! You didn't know him! I knew him!"

I suddenly felt a hatred for this man, this bitter, sick old washout.

"You left him. I saw him jump." I responded shortly.. I hadn't actually seen him jump, that was a lie made out of spite. But I had seen the blood stains on the street. They'd stayed for over a week. The lie was definitely effective though. I watched the anger melt away from him, along with whatever resolve and strength he had left. Now he just looked deflated…broken. I wasn't sure if it was right for me to be happy about this, but I didn't really care.

"Where did you go?"

He looked at me. He was crying now, just a bit. But he wasn't crying for Mark, he was crying for himself, for his own guilt.

"Um, Las Vegas for a little while, Salt Lake City, Austin, then bounced around California."

"Why?"

He shrugged slowly. "I couldn't stay here…I had to go somewhere where I wasn't always thinking about them…I was dead here. I couldn't handle it."

I wasn't sure why I hated him so much, I didn't know him, I didn't know what had happened between him and Mark…I knew nothing, therefore I could judge nothing.

"Guess he couldn't handle it either." I said coldly. Just couldn't help hating him, though.

He started crying more. More tears for guilt. Where were the tears for the blonde camera guy who was nice to a random child when no one else was, who rode his bike around Alphabet City looking for art in the streets, who had enough of this harsh existence and decided to give it all away in order to fly for two seconds?

His eyes met my face, but he wasn't looking at me. "I'll see you around, Gloria." He muttered numbly, pressing a cigarette into my hand before turning and walking away.

I watched him walk away, already knowing that I would never see him again. After bumming a lighter from a woman walking by, I sat and smoked outside on the curb where the bloodstains had been. As I smoked the cigarette down, I felt tears form in the back of my eyes. And for the first time, I cried for him, cried every last tear I had, for him: Mark Cohen, camera guy and another lost soul of Alphabet City.

Because somebody had to.


End file.
